


Face Down

by d__T



Series: The Afternoon Light Cuts to Size [10]
Category: Blood Drive (TV)
Genre: (light body horror), Body Dysmorphia, Body Horror, Dissociation, Introspection, M/M, Memories, has some feelings, monster boyfriend Rasher, the cutest shit I've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 18:24:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13619079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d__T/pseuds/d__T
Summary: "You can have anything you want, when you get me some roadies who can keep their heads on.” turns into Julian doing whatever the fuck he wants with Rasher's wardrobe, like he's always dreamed of. It doesn't go over so well for Rasher.Here's ya aftermath.





	1. Small Mercy

“You finally look the part!” Julian croons. “My right hand man…”

Rasher stands, twisting his feet in his new boots trying to get them to feel right, as Julian paces a circle around him.

It’s making his misplaced internal organs uncomfortable- he was never much for the limelight but any kind of close attention puts him on edge now. Even Julian’s attention. He presses his hands flat against his thighs and  _ stands  _ the inspection.

“Perfect.” Julian chirps from behind him, unsettlingly and surprisingly close. He must have gotten lost in his thoughts.

“Oh. Not quite!” Now Julian is now speaking directly into Rasher’s face. “Need to fix this.”

Rasher grimaces as Julian drags a finger down his nose, across his lips, down his throat, and hooks the collar. The tug on it is not surprising.

Julian turns him to face the mirror. This is the worst part- he doesn’t look like himself. Not his clothes, not his body, not with the black stain of the Scar spreading over his hips, not his blown pupils and red tainted irises, not his skinny shoulders. Only his face looks back at him, and Julian wants to change that too.

He ignores Julian and presses inward on the corset. The ribs bend and the hollowness inside him compresses. The hard shell of the corset keeps that hollowness inside, protected, neutralized. But he’s skinnier now, not like Julian’s compact slenderness, but  _ bones _ . He closes his eyes and sees his ribs poking out of his flesh in his reflection.

Julian, he thinks, doesn’t know the meaning of mercy. An animal created to go after every weak spot.

Julian dips his hand back into the collar. It was a joke right up until he’d buckled it on under Julian’s anticipatory look, and now it’s something different. Julian is the master, and Rasher is- something else.

_ Something else _ doesn’t even begin to sum it up. He’s the monster now, not Julian. He almost laughs, the twitch of it knocking a shoulder against Julian’s arm. Julian is saying something-  _ what _ .

“Lay down.” Julian is saying. “Don’t look.”

Hands on his shoulders, not on the corset not in the collar. Just on his bare skin like  _ before _ times. He thinks that the jacket might be the answer; hide inside it like he hid in his old shirts.

Rasher lays down where he is put down, presses his face into the mattress until he can feel his nose crush and his breath slow. He goes, and then he comes back to the collar gone and the laces down his back loosened.

He tips his head to the side to get the pressure off his nose.

“Ah, there you are.” Julian says from somewhere above him.

He cracks an eye open. Julian is sitting beside him, a book in his lap.  _ Oh. _

“Sorry.” He whispers to Julian’s thigh. Julian rubs the stubby hair on the side of his head.

“Yeah,” says Julian.

He rolls onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest and hugging them. Even this doesn’t feel right, not with the hollowness that occupies where the mass of of his body should be. But it’s better, and better still as Julian tips over to curl around him.

And the Scar will eat him alive from the inside, but what’s the difference of one more body in the trench?

He sleeps.


	2. The Nightmare Will Be Instinctual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exposition(tm)

Julian is the visionary. He has the designs, the  _ artistry _ , the flair to  _ sell _ and keep selling something as absurdly horrifying as the Blood Drive.

_ Donate your life today! _

Rasher is the organizer. He’d been the hands behind warehouse parties all over the California Territories for a couple years. He had  _ contacts _ , networks, people in places. Connections are worth so much more than popularity, as he’d found the hard way. And that’s why Julian pulled him out of a dumpster and back into the land of the living.

_ Heart doesn’t know shit about throwing a party _ .

He doesn’t know any different: the food riots were over by the time he was aware of the world. The cities had fled to the countryside like underbrush offered salvation, and into the mouths of the monsters that crawled out of The Scar. And then Heart Enterprises, refuge of unethical scientists and engineers everywhere moved into the gaping chest wounds of the cities and fed beautiful promises of innovation and prosperity to the desperate.

_ Business as usual _ .

Now the cities are locked in a war of attrition with Heart while the suburbs look away in polite horror, desperate to give Heart their money and their souls in exchange for the illusion that everything is fine, that nothing changed, that everything is  _ normal _ . The illusion that Heart doesn’t snatch people people off the street to experiment on, that the jackals living in the city streets don’t make themselves so toxic that even Heart won’t touch them. Just don’t look.

_ Ask your doctor today if Paxilon Hydrochlorate is right for you! _

It’s so easy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning is for being better.

_ It’s so easy _ .

Rasher groggily rubs his face, trying to crush fragmented dreams out of his mind. Keep the night where it belongs; outside his skull. He’s in Julian’s bed; this is normal and  _ damn  _ what the roadies say about him sleeping with the boss. The warm spot pressed to his back is unusual- Julian is almost always awake before him and off doing things.

Sometimes he’s lucky enough to watch Julian get dressed.

Smiling, he rolls over and wraps himself around Julian. His little bit of height over his boyfriend translates into a full body snuggle when he’s the big spoon, and he realizes he missed this before he remembers  _ why _ he missed it. 

Well, nothing bad has happened because of his rearranged body parts. Not yet. He can do this. It’s been a couple weeks and he’s even mostly figured out how to regulate the hunger- feed it. Feed it.  _ Feed it _ . But he has control over his new mouth, he can feel it. And if he can get past the part where he eats his lover alive, Julian will absolutely survive it. It’s not a problem.

He kisses the back of Julian’s neck and forces himself to relax.

And then realizes his maw has tried to lick Julian’s back.

**Author's Note:**

> And One- Killing the Mercy
> 
> If you're reading this as a series, the next piece is [Burrow Your Way To My Heart by JasperIsAFanboy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13633581)
> 
> Pre Season 4


End file.
